Here is a project that I have been working on for some time and it's finally in a shareable state. VisualbB is an integrated development environment for writing Atari 2600 programs in batariBasic. For anybody that is familiar with Microsoft Visual Studio, it has a similar look and feel. Hope somebody find this useful

*New*Build 554 Update Notes
(Because AA limits 2MB uploads you'll need to download both files and unzip it to the same folder)

Work in Progress
You can grab the latest from my blog. Along with changes that work with the bB1.1 beta builds there are other enhancements like a title screen wizard, integration with bblint, and a new bookmarking feature. These builds are specific to the beta versions of bB1.1 so use at your own risk. It should work fine (even better?) with the latest 1.0 release of bB.

Online Guide available here
Troubleshooting guide is here
Daniel Davis has started a set of video tutorial here

Prerequisites

If you are not running Vista or Windows 7 then you'll need to make sure the .NET Framework 3.0 is installed

If you are running Vista you may need to RunAs Administrator. If you are logged in with admin privileges or have turned off UAC then it should just work

If you are having trouble with the music and sound editor, it's likely you don't have the .NET 1.1 runtimes installed. Older machines don't include it and I believe newer ones won't allow the install.You can just copy msvcr71.dll to your visualbB folder. msvcr71.zip178.89KB561 downloads

Optional

If you are having trouble you may want to try a different 2600bas.bat 2600bas.zip837bytes1150 downloads

If you're using Windows 7 64-bit, you'll need to update your bB files. Here is a copy of my working bB folder bBWin7_64bit-2-26-2013.zip154.13KB1413 downloads You can learn more by reading this thread. Updated on 2/13/2013 with RevEng's jitter fix

If you're having trouble using the sprite/playfield editor go here for a registry fix.

Special thanks to Random Terrain for beta testing and submitting bug reports for many, many years!

I haven't tried it yet, but I couldn't wait to say Thank You! This is much, much appreciated and it will contribute greatly to bB game creation. Everyone who develops a game using this IDE owes you one, big time. Why did you make it? Will you be releasing any bB games?

I haven't tried it yet, but I couldn't wait to say Thank You! This is much, much appreciated and it will contribute greatly to bB game creation. Everyone who develops a game using this IDE owes you one, big time. Why did you make it? Will you be releasing any bB games?

I always wanted to learn bB, but couldn't find an editor that would make it easy enough to do it quickly. The more I thought about it, the more I became obsessed with making a great bB editor. I've made some test projects, but nothing really worth sharing, mostly stuff to make sure I could get this working. I'm hoping you more creative types can use it to create better games for me to play.

VbB isn't just for programmers. Your artist friends can use the VbB sprite editor to make some cool color sprites, then they can save the sprites and send them to you. All you'll have to do is plop them into your game. No more spending hours trying to recreate sprites by looking at GIFs. The same can be done with playfields using the VbB playfield editor.

Once programmers and artists start using VbB, a lot of time and energy will be saved.

Stupid question, but in settings, what do I put for Commands and Dictionary, or do I leave those blank?

Not stupid at all. Those features aren't that intuitive to use.

The Dictionary is for custom terms you want to show up with color codes in the code editor. Click the dictionary button to see the current list of terms, edit as you choose and then save. It will create an XML file with your settings.

Commands are useful if you want to extend the list of commands which you can access from the project explorer pane on the right side. Those commands can literally be anything such as snippets of code that you reuse. You can right click from the commands pane to generate the basic commands.xml file. From there all changes will be saved to that file and reapplied every time you load Visual bB.

You can always leave them blank and use the defaults. They are only necessary if you want to make modifications.

I always wanted to learn bB, but couldn't find an editor that would make it easy enough to do it quickly. The more I thought about it, the more I became obsessed with making a great bB editor. I've made some test projects, but nothing really worth sharing, mostly stuff to make sure I could get this working. I'm hoping you more creative types can use it to create better games for me to play.

Thanks,Jeff

What are your favorite games created with bB so far? What would you most like to see developed using this IDE? Any suggestions on how the language could be improved? I wish there was an official spiral bound bB manual. I don't have a printer and I'm sick of reading it on my screen. It looks like this will really help shorten the "staring at the same s^&*" aspects of using this language for me. I hope you will be able to release an update for use with 1.1 as well.

I wish there was an official spiral bound bB manual. I don't have a printer and I'm sick of reading it on my screen.

Once the AtariAge Wiki is set up, many people will be able to work on the bB info and it will become even easier to understand. Then maybe someone will put it in book form. Now that we have a new IDE that is easy-to-use, has cool tools, and won't become obsolete overnight, maybe more people will finally use bB and a book will be worth the cost. A company like Chris++ uses that logs a worldwide ISBN number might be worth looking into.